The Need For A Canadian Public Broadcaster

PLSC 3398 – 001

December 12th, 2002 

The ongoing shift towards privatization in Canada has left many people wondering what to do with the public entity of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC Radio Canada. In 2000, the then premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, summed up the privatization position of selling of the $750 million dollar project.

"I've always felt there was a role for 'national railways' in bringing the country together…then, if the private sector can run it more efficiently, it ought to."

This paper will argue the need of a Canadian public broadcaster, in that the government-sponsored policies of public media do not replicate the goals of private broadcasters, Canadian or American. The CBC acts as a social touchstone in Canada, as well as a check on both government and private sector activities. Both of these goals distinguish the CBC from the profit-orientated goals of the private system in Canada, while increasing the status of Canadian identity through special, Canadian-focused programming.

	Spanning almost 10 million square km, Canada is a massive country. Even with most of the population clumped within a few hundred kilometres of the US boarder, the unforgiving terrain makes it a difficult place to deal with. The people living there are just as diverse as the landscape. The ever-present French minority, increasing influence of Pacific Rim immigration, as well as the urban/rural divide creates ongoing political tension in every day Canadian life.  These tensions are compounded by the ever-present politics of living next to the global hyper-power, the USA. The influence of American culture has always played a predominant role in establishing Canadian identity. The idea of “being Canadian” is as often described as “not being American”, which is hardly an anthem for a country. 

	Part of the success of Canada has been its historic ability to establish communication across its land. The country was originally brought together by the establishment of the trade paths of Upper and Lower Canada, and later the railroad, which allowed westward expansion. These lines followed the aspects of commercial trade, which allowed the set-up of venture capital towns and cities, which themselves would become hubs of activity, send off more roads and lines into the wilderness – a point well described by Innis. The nation building, in the forms of cities and railways, did not create a homogenous Canadian culture, so much as the lines of communication that brought one area into contact, and trade, with another. 

The dominance of English in Canada came from the ability of Ottawa (and other English urban centres) to dominate the language of trade via the lines of communication that accompanied the Trans Canada railroad. In order to comply with the shipping rules of the day, public and private workers had to speak the same language as the person at the other end of the telegraph line – both Morse Code, and transcribed English. Thus, the immigrants who made up a very large percentage of the prairie farming community, heavy in Slavic, Germanic and Ukrainian backgrounds, were essentially forced to learn the language of the markets, and the pockets of traditional language were relegated to secondary status. This can also be seen in Quebec, where the shipping hubs of Montreal and Quebec City were strong enough to hold French as the market language, thus allowing French settlements to continue in their native language and culture. Skipping ahead to modern day, Canada is under the same issue. Canadian markets use the language of Americans. That American language includes a dominant culture of unquestioned capitalistic markets, that clashes with the traditional, more left-wing ideologies of Canada. 

	Just as radio before it, television was a disappointment to the concept of freedom and democracy. Early Canadian attempts at creating an assembly where direct representation could take place failed. In 1972, the short-lived program “Town Talk” aired – it was a short phone-in “town-hall” meeting that was supposed to allow the average citizen time to air his or her opinion on various governmental meetings. The local governments did not want TV crews at their meetings, and network crews were not happy with the idea of giving up airtime to unprofitable community groups. As American public filmmaker George Stoney said in Public Radio and Television in America, “The CRTC, despite considerable pressure from all over Canada to set a different precedent for community cable use, sided with the industry.” In less than a year, Town Talk was dropped.

	Town Talk’s broadcasts had all the underpinnings of a public good. It was available to anyone who had access to a TV, it was impossible to divide, and the use of it by one person did not leave less for someone else. Yet it was determined to be not worth the cost of production by the industry and later, the CRTC. The show was never meant to be profitable, so what was the cause of the cancellation? 
	
	The answer to this can be found in the much earlier establishment of communications in America. Originally a public tool, the right to broadcast radio signals was quickly taken away from public hands, given to the government by the first world war, and re-sold to large American corporations. By the “Golden Age” of radio, (the 1920’s) the American mentality of the production of radio had been set. Although some Americans would soon send (private volunteer) troops to Spain to fight along socialist causes, the corporate broadcasting world was one that “was expanding its system of mass production and consumption; Mass communications eventually would play a central role in stabilizing, reproducing and strengthening this system of consumer capitalism.” And the corporate world had a much stronger influence on American politics than the doomed Abraham Lincoln divisions. 

	American media fostered a capitalistic society that was based on individualism, the value of private goods, and a basic belief in the workings of a fair lassie-fair economy. In radio, television, and Internet broadcasting, the initial tests showed an open field of diverse views and opinions, some of which would prove to be more popular than others. The fixed costs immediately eliminated some voices, and gradually the others were swept away by the advantages of the elite, or, in some cases, the shear crowding out by more competitive producers. With television, the cards were stacked from the beginning against smaller competitors who hoped of taking on the large producers, NBC and CBS. These companies used their economies of scale to create media empires, which still run strong today. The maximization of economies of scale was found in conglomerates – a single entity that owns many different types of production, each of which interlink, so that the company is almost self-sufficient. The television networks NBC and CBS quickly bought their own entertainment studios, so as to produce content for the air. The profitability of this US government sanctioned monopoly was gigantic. The technology needed for a TV gradually came down in price (as with all technologies) and the TV market boomed.

TV entertainment, as public information before it, soon became a secondary issue, with the need for profits outweighing any other motive.  ABC became a TV broadcaster and movie studio, owning 67 TV stations in 27 countries by 1968, and by 1989 had nine daily US papers, and 60 magazines in its media section alone. Bought out by Disney, it is now the 45th largest company in the US. NBC (Microsoft) and RCA allied themselves with General Electric, the prime American weapons producer, putting the net worth into the hundred millions. More recently, mega mergers like Time Warner-AOL have created empires in which the value can only be estimated in the billions. As the German and Ukrainian farmers in the North West Territory of  the 1800’s had to contend with the domination of the market by the English, these are the corporations that Canadian broadcasters are forced to compete with today.

Despite this David versus Goliath analogy, Canadian corporations have survived. CTV is a private, national station that has held its own against American interests for decades. All major Canadian cities have at least one small (relatively) independent channel that produces its own programming, and adds the “local view” to many news stories. However, these small channels rely on foreign content to create the demographics they need to sell to stay alive. The prime time slots of CTV, A-Channel, many of CHUM television’s stations are US sitcoms, dramas or sporting events. Even entertainment shows are made to appeal to a broad audience, thus the action almost inevitably is set in America, even if it is filmed, in Calgary, Vancouver, or Toronto.  The “local news” that is produced is marginalized by the shear costs of maintaining an international, or even national media. Canadian journalism relies heavily on “canned” stories, that is, news stories that have been create by another source and are sold to as many stations as possible. The companies that are the best at this are the ones that already have the capital to maintain a fleet of reporters – the conglomerates. 

	The idea of a few Multi-National Corporations filtering the information available to the world is very real.  Even when abandoned news stories are picked up by alternative press agencies, there isn’t necessarily a means for the reporters to market them. In America, attempts by the US government to create regulations on these networks have ended in decisions to let the networks create their own schedules. In Republic.com, Cass Sunstein portrays his 1996-7 Presidential inquiry into media/broadcast regulation. Sunstein’s experience into media regulation is fraught with conflicts-of-interest, and a well-funded, well-educated NAB lobby ready to take on any who would dare attempt to force public broadcasting on private networks.
 
	Canada does not have the population, or the market to tackle this problem of information control head-on. The nature of modern broadcasting is that it is very hard to keep other broadcasts out. The Canadian CRTC puts pressure on cable companies to adhere to certain policies, but with the implementation of technologies like “grey” satellite TV, digital cable, and the internet, it becomes almost impossible to administer them. The Canadian Broadcasting Company is the exception to the rule that Canada cannot afford its own programming. Because the CBC is funded at arms-length from the government, it is allowed to criticize both the private and public sector through its news reporting, with limited fear of consequence, whereas CNN has Bank of America ads on its Internet homepage. 
	Overall, there is a need for a public broadcaster in Canada, and this has been achieved without causing damage to private networks. Since, as Gerry Noble, chief executive of Global Communications Ltd, has said, ”[private] Television is still very much defined as a sports and entertainment arena, with news and information ... as the third primary focus of what television audiences want…. That’s what the audience wants. Is this guy saying simply that's not good TV or it's not the television he wants to watch?" the CBC supposedly can offer Canadian news as a first priority, and attach itself to a different demographic than private broadcasters, reducing any fear of government interference in the market place – one of the main concerns of the NBA. Alberta premier Ralph Klein has often said, governments should get out of the business of business, and the CBC public polices over profit-orientated programming is a great example of that.
While business concerns are legitimate, the major issue is maintaining Canadian sovereignty, identity and the ability to communicate with itself. These are not the interests of private media, but are very important goals if Canada is to allow itself to have the opportunity for a different, non-American view of politics, economics and society. The CBC is a loose example of a public good in action, increasing the quality of life of all people, not just target demographics, while promoting a distinctly Canadian voice in world where regional identity is losing the battle against mass private communication. 

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